All Topics  
Claudius II

 
Claudius II

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Claudius II
 
 
  Topics Claudius II Topic Home

Marcus Aurelius Claudius (May 10, 213
213

Sorry, no overview for this topic
/214 - January, 270), often referred to as Claudius Gothicus or Claudius II, was a Roman Emperor
Roman Emperor

The Roman Emperor was the ruler of the Roman Empire during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office: Latin language titles such as imperator , Augustus , Caesar and princeps were all associated with it....
. He ruled the Roman Empire
Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the Roman Republic phase of the Ancient Rome, characterised by an autocracy form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
 for less than two years (268 - 270), but during that brief time he managed to obtain some successes. He was later given divine status.

dius' origin is uncertain. He was either from Sirmium
Sirmium

Sirmium was an ancient city in Roman Pannonia. Sirmium originally was an Illyrians town conquered by the Ancient Rome in the 1st century BC. It was a very important town in the later Roman Empire, being the economic capital of Roman Pannonia and one of the four capital cities of the Roman Empire....
 (Syrmia
Syrmia

Syrmia is a fertile region of the Pannonian Plain in Europe, between the Danube and Sava rivers. It is divided between Serbia in the east and Croatia in the west....
; in Pannonia
Pannonia

Pannonia is an ancient province of the Roman Empire bounded north and east by the Danube, coterminous westward with Noricum and upper Italy, and southward with Dalmatia and upper Moesia....
 Inferior) or from Naissus Dardania (in Moesia Superior); both areas are located in Serbia
Serbia

Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a country in Central Europe and Balkans Europe, covering the southern part of the Pannonian Plain and the central part of the Balkans....
.

Claudius was the commander of the Roman army that decisively defeated the Goths
Goths

The Goths were East Germanic tribes who, in the 3rd and 4th centuries, invasion the Roman Empire and later adopted Arian Christianity. In the 5th and 6th centuries, divided as the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, they established powerful successor-states of the Roman Empire in the Iberian peninsula and Italy....
 at the Battle of Naissus
Battle of Naissus

The Battle of Naissus was the defeat of a Goths coalition by the Roman Empire under Emperor Gallienus near Naissus . The events around the invasion and the battle are an important part of the history of the Crisis of the Third Century....
 in September 268; in the same month, he attained the throne, amid charges, never proven, that he murdered his predecessor Gallienus
Gallienus

Publius Licinius Egnatius Gallienus ruled the Roman Empire as co-emperor with his father Valerian from 253 to 260, and then as the sole Roman Emperor from 260 to 268....
.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Claudius II'
Start a new discussion about 'Claudius II'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Recent Posts

What was the personality, and interesting attributes of the private and public life of Claudius II?








Encyclopedia


Marcus Aurelius Claudius (May 10, 213
213

Sorry, no overview for this topic
/214 - January, 270), often referred to as Claudius Gothicus or Claudius II, was a Roman Emperor
Roman Emperor

The Roman Emperor was the ruler of the Roman Empire during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office: Latin language titles such as imperator , Augustus , Caesar and princeps were all associated with it....
. He ruled the Roman Empire
Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the Roman Republic phase of the Ancient Rome, characterised by an autocracy form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
 for less than two years (268 - 270), but during that brief time he managed to obtain some successes. He was later given divine status.

Life


Origin and rise to power

Claudius' origin is uncertain. He was either from Sirmium
Sirmium

Sirmium was an ancient city in Roman Pannonia. Sirmium originally was an Illyrians town conquered by the Ancient Rome in the 1st century BC. It was a very important town in the later Roman Empire, being the economic capital of Roman Pannonia and one of the four capital cities of the Roman Empire....
 (Syrmia
Syrmia

Syrmia is a fertile region of the Pannonian Plain in Europe, between the Danube and Sava rivers. It is divided between Serbia in the east and Croatia in the west....
; in Pannonia
Pannonia

Pannonia is an ancient province of the Roman Empire bounded north and east by the Danube, coterminous westward with Noricum and upper Italy, and southward with Dalmatia and upper Moesia....
 Inferior) or from Naissus Dardania (in Moesia Superior); both areas are located in Serbia
Serbia

Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a country in Central Europe and Balkans Europe, covering the southern part of the Pannonian Plain and the central part of the Balkans....
.

Claudius was the commander of the Roman army that decisively defeated the Goths
Goths

The Goths were East Germanic tribes who, in the 3rd and 4th centuries, invasion the Roman Empire and later adopted Arian Christianity. In the 5th and 6th centuries, divided as the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, they established powerful successor-states of the Roman Empire in the Iberian peninsula and Italy....
 at the Battle of Naissus
Battle of Naissus

The Battle of Naissus was the defeat of a Goths coalition by the Roman Empire under Emperor Gallienus near Naissus . The events around the invasion and the battle are an important part of the history of the Crisis of the Third Century....
 in September 268; in the same month, he attained the throne, amid charges, never proven, that he murdered his predecessor Gallienus
Gallienus

Publius Licinius Egnatius Gallienus ruled the Roman Empire as co-emperor with his father Valerian from 253 to 260, and then as the sole Roman Emperor from 260 to 268....
. However, he soon proved to be less than bloodthirsty, as he asked the Roman Senate
Roman Senate

The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic. According to the Greek historian Polybius, our principal source on the Constitution of the Roman Republic, the Roman Senate was the predominant branch of government....
 to spare the lives of Gallienus' family and supporters. He was less magnanimous toward Rome's enemies, however, and it was to this that he owed his popularity.

Claudius, like Maximinus Thrax
Maximinus Thrax

Gaius Iulius Verus Maximinus , also known as Maximinus Thrax and Maximinus I, was a Roman Emperor .Maximinus is described by several ancient sources as the first barbarian who wore the imperial purple and the first emperor never to set foot in Rome....
 before him, was of barbarian birth. After an interlude of failed aristocratic Roman emperors since Maximinus's death, Claudius was the first in a series of tough soldier-emperors who would eventually restore the Empire from the Crisis of the third century
Crisis of the Third Century

Crisis of the Third Century was the crumbling and near collapse of the Roman Empire between 235 and 284 caused by invasion, civil war, Plague of Cyprian, and economic collapse....
.

Claudius as emperor


At the time of his accession, the Roman Empire was in serious danger from several incursions, both within and outside its borders. The most pressing of these was an invasion of Illyricum and Pannonia
Pannonia

Pannonia is an ancient province of the Roman Empire bounded north and east by the Danube, coterminous westward with Noricum and upper Italy, and southward with Dalmatia and upper Moesia....
 by the Goths
Goths

The Goths were East Germanic tribes who, in the 3rd and 4th centuries, invasion the Roman Empire and later adopted Arian Christianity. In the 5th and 6th centuries, divided as the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, they established powerful successor-states of the Roman Empire in the Iberian peninsula and Italy....
. Not long after being named emperor (or just prior to Gallienus' death, depending on the source), he won his greatest victory, and one of the greatest in the history of Roman arms.

At the Battle of Naissus
Battle of Naissus

The Battle of Naissus was the defeat of a Goths coalition by the Roman Empire under Emperor Gallienus near Naissus . The events around the invasion and the battle are an important part of the history of the Crisis of the Third Century....
, Claudius and his legions routed a huge Gothic army. Together with his cavalry commander, the future Emperor Aurelian
Aurelian

Lucius Domitius Aurelianus , known in English as Aurelian, Roman Emperor , was the second of several highly successful "soldier-emperors" who helped the Roman Empire regain its power during the latter part of the third century and the beginning of the fourth....
, the Romans took thousands of prisoners, destroyed the Gothic cavalry as a force and stormed their laager (a circular alignment of wagons long favored by the Goths). The victory earned Claudius his surname of "Gothicus" (conqueror of the Goths), and that is how he is known to this day. More importantly, the Goths were soon driven back across the Danube River, and a century passed before they again posed a serious threat to the empire.

While this was going on, the Germanic tribe known as the Alamanni
Alamanni

The Alamanni, Allemanni, or Alemanni were originally an alliance of Germanic languagess located around the upper Main river . One of the earliest references to them is the cognomen Alamannicus assumed by Caracalla, who ruled the Roman Empire from 211?17 and claimed thereby to be their defeater....
 had crossed the Alps
Alps

The Alps is the name for one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east; through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany; to France in the west....
 and attacked the empire. Claudius responded quickly, routing the Alamanni at the Battle of Lake Benacus
Battle of Lake Benacus

The Battle of Lake Benacus was one of the decisive battles that marked the beginning of the Roman Empire's emergence from the Crisis of the Third Century....
 in the late fall of 268, a few months after the battle of Naissus. He then turned on the Gallic Empire
Gallic Empire

The Gallic Empire is the modern name for the independent realm that existed from 260 to 273, during the Roman Empire's Crisis of the Third Century....
, ruled by a pretender for the past fifteen years and encompassing Britain
Roman Britain

Roman Britain refers to those parts of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire between AD 43 and 410. The Romans referred to their province as Britannia....
, Gaul
Gaul

Gaul is the name used for the region of Western Europe comprising part of present day northern Italy, France, Belgium, western Switzerland and the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the River Rhine....
, and the Iberian Peninsula
Iberian Peninsula

The Iberian Peninsula, or Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes modern-day Spain, Portugal, Andorra and Gibraltar and a very small area of France....
. He won several victories and soon regained control of Spain and the Rhone river valley of Gaul. This set the stage for the ultimate destruction of the Gallic Empire under Aurelian.

However, Claudius did not live long enough to fulfill his goal of reuniting all the lost territories of the empire. Late in 269 he was preparing to go to war against the Vandals
Vandals

The Vandals were an East Germanic tribe that entered the late Roman Empire during the 5th century. The Goths Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths and regent of the Visigoths, was allied by marriage with the Vandals as well as with the Burgundians and the Franks under Clovis I....
, who were raiding in Pannonia
Pannonia

Pannonia is an ancient province of the Roman Empire bounded north and east by the Danube, coterminous westward with Noricum and upper Italy, and southward with Dalmatia and upper Moesia....
. However, he fell victim to the Plague of Cyprian
Plague of Cyprian

The Plague of Cyprian is the name given to a pandemic, probably of smallpox, that afflicted the Roman Empire from 251 AD onwards. It was still raging in 270, when it claimed the life of emperor Claudius II Gothicus ....
 (possibly smallpox
Smallpox

Smallpox is an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning spotted, or varus, meaning "pimple"....
), and died early in January 270. Before his death, he is thought to have named Aurelian as his successor, although Claudius' brother Quintillus
Quintillus

Marcus Aurelius Claudius Quintillus was born in Sirmium in Illyricum. He was brother of Roman Emperor Claudius II, and became Emperor himself in 270....
 briefly seized power.

The Senate
Roman Senate

The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic. According to the Greek historian Polybius, our principal source on the Constitution of the Roman Republic, the Roman Senate was the predominant branch of government....
 immediately deified Claudius as "Divus Claudius Gothicus".

Links to Constantinian dynasty

The Historia Augusta reports Claudius and Quintillus having another brother named Crispus and through him a niece. Said niece Claudia reportedly married Eutropius and was mother to Constantius Chlorus
Constantius Chlorus

Flavius Valerius Constantius , also Constantius I, was an Roman emperor of the Western Roman Empire . He was commonly called Chlorus an epithet given to him by Byzantine Empire historians....
. Historians however suspect this account to be a genealogical fabrication intended to link Constantine I
Constantine I

Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus , commonly known in English_language as Constantine I, Constantine the Great, or Saint Constantine , was Roman Emperor from 306, and the undisputed holder of that office from 324 until his death in 337....
's family to that of a well-respected emperor.

Primary Sources

  • Aurelius Victor
    Aurelius Victor

    Sextus Aurelius Victor was an historian and politician of the Roman Empire.Aurelius Victor was the author of a History of Rome from Augustus to Julian the Apostate , published ca....
    ,
  • Eutropius
    Eutropius

    IntroductionNot much is known about the early life of Eutropius because there are no written texts that document his life. Eutropius should not be confused with Eutropius of Valencia or Saint Eutropius....
    ,
  • Historia Augusta,
  • Joannes Zonaras
    Joannes Zonaras

    Ioannes Zonaras was a Byzantine Empire chronicler and theology, who lived at Constantinople.Under Emperor Alexios I Komnenos he held the offices of Drungarios of the Vigla and private secretary to the emperor, but after Alexios' death, he retired to the monastery of St Glykeria, where he spent the rest of his life in writing books....
    , Compendium of History
  • Zosimus
    Zosimus

    Zosimus was a Byzantine Empire historian, who lived in Constantinople during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Anastasius I . According to Photios I of Constantinople, he was a comes, and held the office of "advocate" of the imperial treasury....
    ,


See also

  • Roman Empire
    Roman Empire

    The Roman Empire was the Roman Republic phase of the Ancient Rome, characterised by an autocracy form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....